The present disclosure relates in general to the facilitation of effective meetings. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to systems and methodologies for facilitating the prediction and identification of targets and sources of bullying and other counterproductive interactions in live and virtual meeting contexts based at least in part on the identification and analysis of predictive cognitive traits of meeting participants.
Every organization, whether it has 2 members or 2,000, relies on live, virtual and hybrid live/virtual meetings as a regular part of conducting operations. In a team-focused environment, team meetings facilitate input from a variety of perspectives and people. Given the diversity of personalities, temperaments and communication styles among members of a typical team, it is inevitable that some interactions between team members will be counterproductive to the short term goals of the particular meeting, as well as the long term goals of the team.
Bullying is a common form of counterproductive interaction in a meeting. Bullying behavior can take a variety of forms, including for example interrupting, interrogating and intimidating other meeting attendees. Bullying behavior causes disruption and a less productive work environment both inside and outside of the meeting room. The meeting climate created by a bully increases stress on targets of the bullying behavior, and prevents other team members from contributing to group discussions or suggesting new perspectives.
Team leaders have ultimate responsibility for managing team effectiveness, which includes the identification and removal of counterproductive behaviors and interactions from team meetings. Team leaders are often trained to apply strategies designed to identify and remove counterproductive meeting behavior and interactions. While some forms of counterproductive behavior and interaction are overt, other forms are subtle and more difficult to detect. For example, bullying can be expressed through passive aggressive acts (e.g., pretending not to see, hear or remember requests), which are chosen to deliberately mask the aggressive intentions of the bully. Similarly, some team members who are the target of bullying behavior may exhibit overt and easily identified signs of discomfort, while other team members who are the target of bullying behavior may exhibit subtle and more difficult to detect signs of discomfort.
It would be beneficial to provide team leaders with systems and methodologies for facilitating, in live and virtual meeting contexts, the prediction and identification of targets and sources of counterproductive behavior, as well as the identification and optimized prevention of counterproductive interactions.